Hosted by self-confessed pop rambler Iain McDermott, ‘Back To NOW’ is a podcast that celebrates all things related to the variously compiled world of pop, how our favourite compilation albums shaped our lives and now fondly stand as time capsules for our own musical journeys.
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK’s Chi Ming Lai and Ian Ferguson were extremely pleased to be invited as guests on ‘Back To NOW’ and opted to choose the 2022 release of the ‘NOW ‘81 Yearbook’ 4CD set and its companion 3CD set of “Extras”. One of the reasons it was chosen was because, as described by the Now Music official website , “it was a watershed year for pop with new British artists emerging from the ashes of punk and disco by way of the New Romantic movement”
1981 saw key albums by ULTRAVOX, SIMPLE MINDS, HEAVEN 17, THE HUMAN LEAGUE, JAPAN, NEW ORDER, OMD, DEPECHE MODE and SOFT CELL as well as Gary Numan and John Foxx, released within a 10 week period that Autumn. The year also saw the return of KRAFTWERK and Jean-Michel Jarre after an absence of 3 years while DURAN DURAN issued their self-titled debut long player.
Among the discussion points in this episode are how the affordability of synthesizers was changing the musical landscape, Midge Ure was becoming particularly ubiquitous as a producer, ABBA’s ‘The Visitors’ album and how progressive rock elements were seeping into the sounds of the year. This was the year 1981 B.C.C. – before CULTURE CLUB!
Of course, the ‘Now That’s What I Call Music’ series did not exist at the time so there is room for chat about the compilations of the period, in particular K-Tel’s ‘Modern Dance’ of 1982 which provided a near-definitive snapshot of electronic pop of 1980-1981. Featuring DEPECHE MODE, THE HUMAN LEAGUE, OMD, VISAGE, HEAVEN 17, JAPAN, SIMPLE MINDS, LANDSCAPE, FASHION and THE CURE, Radio1 DJ Peter Powell declared that ‘Modern Dance’ was “The best of total danceability, the sounds of modern dance, on one LP!”.
The trio also get to discuss what songs are missing on ‘NOW ‘81 Yearbook’ and ‘NOW ‘81 Yearbook’Extra’ be it be to licensing or artist veto, and in a year when quite a few brilliant songs did not actually get chart recognition, they each choose their three tracks which they would like to have been included.
The broad church of the UK singles charts at that time meant that it was not all good, with easy listening Radio 2 tunes, soppy Motown ballads and medley records dispelling the rose-tinted myth often portrayed by today’s internet radio DJs that the 1981 charts was full of synthpop! This becomes one of the talking points, as does the fact that heavy metal, rock ‘n’ roll, soul, jazz funk, disco, reggae, ska, post-punk, AOR and mainstream pop sat significantly alongside the New Romantics and Futurists.
1981 was a dazzling 12 months where the decade began to take shape and form an identity that remains with us today. Grab some blank tapes, switch off one of the 3 channels on your TV and join us as we head back to a glorious year in pop, 1981.
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its warmest thanks to Iain McDermott
NASH THE SLASH was the late Jeff Plewman, a Canadian multi-instrumentalist adept at electric violin and mandolin.
He was also the first Canadian to ever use a drum machine on an album, while his music was a complex blend of prog, art rock, new wave and performance art. His persona was inspired by a killer butler that featured in the 1927 silent film ‘Do Detectives Think?’ starring Laurel and Hardy.
Plewman started performing as a solo artist beginning in 1975 and founded the progressive rock band FM in 1976. The NASH THE SLASH trademark look covered in surgical bandages began in 1979 to raise awareness of the Three Mile Island nuclear disaster; he walked on stage wearing bandages dipped in phosphorus paint and exclaimed: “Look, this is what happens to you!”
NASH THE SLASH opened for Gary Numan on his ‘Teletour’ and played violin on the tracks ‘Cry The Clock Said’ and ‘You Are You Are’ from his 1981 ‘Dance’ album; as well as this, he appeared as an onstage guest at Numan’s then-farewell concert at Wembley Arena in April 1981. Earlier in the year, he had released the Steve Hillage produced album ‘Children Of The Night’ on Dindisc Records, the Virgin Records funded imprint that brought OMD their initial commercial success.
This was the period when NASH THE SLASH had his highest mainstream media profile, with him even being given the honour of a profile interview by ‘Smash Hits’ where he stated his full name was “Nashville Thebodiah Slasher”! Indeed, NASH THE SLASH’s best known recording in the UK was an early stripped down version of ‘Swing-Shift’ alongside his label mates’ live rendition of ‘Pretending To See The Future’ on a blue flexi-disc given away free with ‘Smash Hits’.
NASH THE SLASH’s next album was ‘And You Thought You Were Normal’ in 1982 and featured the single ‘Dance After Curfew’ produced by Daniel Lanois; it fittingly became a radio hit in Poland as the country’s Communist government declared martial law.
NASH THE SLASH also later worked with Bill Nelson and opened shows for Iggy Pop, THE WHO, THE TUBES and DEVO. He rejoined FM but continued to perform solo and returned for a UK tour in 2008. He was also on stage with Gary Numan again in October 2010 for a rendition of ‘Complex’ at Toronto Opera House but announced his retirement via his website in November 2012, stating he was “rolling up the bandages”.
However, NASH THE SLASH sadly passed away in May 2014. But his work and legacy lives on; a number of his costumes and instruments were donated to the National Music Centre in Calgary while his custom skull mandolin is on display in the Canadian Music Hall of Fame.
In 2015, Artoffact Records reissued six of his albums and in 2017, filming began on the documentary ‘NASH THE SLASH Rises, Again!’. Written by Colin Brunton, Kevan Byrne and Tim Kowalski, the film has been produced in collaboration with The NASH THE SLASH Legacy; over 50 interviews have been conducted with his friends, collaborators and fans of his work, while archival footage and rare images have also been unearthed.
Featuring contributions from Gary Numan, Danielle Dax, Steve Hillage, Youth and Owen Pallett among others, it tells a universal story of artistic struggle. Several years in the making, a GoFundMe has been set up to help bring the project to completion with regards post picture lab and sound mix, legals, music rights, TV + Film licenses, publicity, accounting and insurance.
Back in 2010, Stephen Roper interviewed NASH THE SLASH for his Gary Numan book ‘Back Stage: A Book Of Reflections’; he has kindly given permission for ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK to publish edited extracts of his delightful conversation with a unique individual.
On his start in electronic music…
I started doing solo electronic music in 1975 and back then, I was probably the first guy in Canada using a drum machine when drum machines were illegal. People don’t seem to know all these years later but drum machines used to be illegal and according to The Musicians Union, anyone using an artificial device to make music would be barred from appearing on a union stage.
On performing at The Edge in Toronto 1980…
I was the second biggest draw at the club after MARTHA & THE MUFFINS. The club held 150 people and even the band THE POLICE had only attracted 35 people to what was their fifth gig ever. I asked to do a week-long show which I decided to call ‘The St. Valentine’s Week Massacre’. It played from Monday to Sunday night, the Thursday being St. Valentine’s Day, February 14th.
For the second part of my set I changed into a grey pinstripe suit with a grey fedora. I was doing a symbolic re-enactment of the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre! At the end of ‘Danger Zone’ you could hear 1930’s gangsters talking and then gunfire on the backing tape.
Meanwhile, I jumped off the stage and as the music and gunfire continued, I pulled a blank-gun from my vest and began shooting at the stage at my imaginary assailants. I escaped through the crowd back to the dressing room, firing all the way. To say the least, it was dramatic and went down a storm.
Today, I would be arrested for carrying a concealed weapon and sued for causing extreme emotional trauma! I had no idea then, that I would be offered the gig to open for Gary Numan at The Toronto Music Hall on the following Monday.
On opening for Gary Numan…
This was my first big tour and I loved it. I was somewhere in age between Gary and his dad Tony and the whole family on the road thing suited my personality. Beryl was the tour mom and it felt nice to be part of their personal family dynamic.
His mum and dad weren’t prudish and didn’t tut tut over people doing strange rock ‘n’ roll things – they knew what it was about. I was just another performer whom Beryl wanted to make sure looked his best on stage. She would send my stage-clothes along with everyone else’s to the dry cleaners.
I wasn’t that familiar with Gary’s music when we first set out. I’d heard ‘Cars’ and ‘Down In The Park’ but I didn’t know his other TUBEWAY ARMY stuff but I certainly got a quick lesson in it! I really did love the music and I still love it today. Not everything that Gary’s done has been that memorable but I think that period of time when he was writing those tunes was just killer stuff.
On touring the UK…
I didn’t think twice about it if I’m honest. For me, the UK was all about the intensity. I’d already established myself opening for Gary at big venues on the North American tour.
I was just pleased to be playing to these rabid British crowds. In North America, the audiences were good but at the same time, they were just getting into Gary.
When I got to England, his crowd were already well established and enthusiastic to say the least. They were also very respectful of me in the opening slot so that was very nice.
Photo by Paul Till
The only low point for me on the tour was having my mandolins stolen from the Hammersmith Odeon. As we were doing two consecutive nights there, the equipment was left set-up on the stage overnight. Unfortunately for us, someone broke in and stole three of Gary’s keyboards, a few guitars and my mandolins. Keyboards and guitars were relatively easy to replace but custom-built electric
mandolins were a different matter.
Scotland Yard came to the venue to take statements from everyone. They got a police artist to do a drawing of my mandolins and showed the picture on the TV on a show called ‘Crimewatch’. I managed to get by using a cheap electric mandolin I found in a shop in London.
I managed to modify it so that it sounded half-decent. My mandolins eventually turned up four months later in a park. They were found by a little old lady walking her dogs and luckily, weren’t seriously damaged.
On signing to Dinsdisc and recording with Gary Numan…
After the tour, I stayed on in London and managed to get a deal with Dindisc who were a subsidiary of Virgin. I went in the studio in December 1980 and recorded the album ‘Children Of The Night’. In January 1981 I was doing my own one-man shows in London and I got a call from Gary. “How would you like to play on my new album ‘Dance’?” I went to the studio and met Gary and QUEEN’s Roger Taylor and the three of us sat around and mucked about on the piano and came up with some ideas.
I’d been forewarned about the phenomenon of QUEEN and their status but it turned out that Roger Taylor was totally non-pretentious. I found him to be a really nice guy. Although it was fun to play on the tracks, I don’t think ‘Dance’ was one of Gary’s strongest albums. Considering its title, the LP just doesn’t make me want to DANCE! I found it all too laid back for my tastes. It was as if Gary wanted to sound like the band JAPAN which frankly, I can’t stand.
We were recording the ‘Dance’ album in February 1981 and not long after that, Gary became busy formulating his big farewell concert at Wembley. Knowing I was available, Gary asked me to be part of it. Gary said to me “I don’t want you to be the opening act, I want you to be in the band”.
On performing with Gary Numan…
It was still a lot of work though and as I remember, the big film studio we were rehearsing in had no heating and April that year was particularly cold. The crew brought in these giant heaters for us that looked like jet engines but they barely made any difference. I remember we rehearsed every day for a week. When you have such a monstrous stage show, you can imagine the amount of preparation needed.
My part was to stand on-top of the massive rig and play ‘Cry, The Clock Said’, (reprising my role from the new album) and then my big moment would be to come running out onto the stage for ‘The Joy Circuit’ and join the rest of the band with my violin. We did three nights but the last was just a bit more special and would definitely be one of those unforgettable moments for me.
On the UK music press…
It’s wonderful that Britain has a passionate music press but on the other hand they can take their role too seriously. There’s the praising you one week and crucifying you the next. I think that has a lot to do with power tripping. I became aware of the bad press Gary was getting when I got over there and started to tour with him.
I think there was a lot of jealousy in the industry at the time. I noticed it being bantered about at Virgin and Dindisc in general conversation. It seemed that anytime I went into those offices and we’d be talking about electronic pop music, if Gary’s name came up the reaction would be “Gary Numan’s just a poser, a w*nker, you know a David Bowie wannabe…” and all that stuff. I would just reply “Yeah but he’s had hit songs; what about you?”
I’ve always been offended by the term “one-hit-wonder”. Not from the perspective to condescend to these people but to say to people who comment “well what f*cking hit did you ever have?”
One hit is more than nothing. I wish I was a one hit wonder! Gary certainly rose above that, I think he was bugged by the slagging personally, (I know I sure as hell was) but regardless, he rose above it. He just got on with doing what he does.
On his impact in the UK…
It was great to have the opportunity to come back and play in the UK in 2008. I had an epiphany from when I was there. What happened was that every night, these guys were coming up to me and telling me the same thing. “I was going to my very first rock concert to see my new idol Gary Numan, I was 14 years old and what’s the first thing I see? Not Gary Numan but this guy in white tails, top hat and bandages playing solo electric violin and ripping my face off, and I never forgot it.”
All of these guys were telling me this 28 years later and I’m thinking, Gosh you people have a helluva memory. It wasn’t that at all… it was that I’d brainwashed them all when they were 14!
Interview by Stephen Roper
Additional Text by Chi Ming Lai with thanks to Simon Helm
28 August 2024 reworked from an article originally published 25 November 2018
‘Dream Machines: Electronic Music in Britain from Doctor Who to Acid House’ is a fascinating book tracing several decades of British electronic music.
Written by Matthew Collin whose previous books have included ‘Altered State: The Story of Ecstasy Culture and Acid House’, ‘Rave On: Global Adventures in Electronic Dance Music’ and ‘Pop Grenade: From Public Enemy to Pussy Riot – Dispatches from Musical Frontlines’, the content in ‘Dream Machines’ covers early avant-garde experiments, psychedelia, space rock, art rock, reggae, synthpop, electro, sampling, Hi-NRG, house and techno across 400+ pages. As well as technological advances in music making, the cultural and socio-political shifts that changed attitudes and gave tools to outsiders for self-expression are discussed.
Among the many who have been interviewed about this formative period are Gary Numan, John Foxx, Dave Ball, Stephen Morris, Martyn Ware, Chris Carter, Cosey Fanni Tutti, Steve Hillage, Miquette Giraudy, Stephen Mallinder, Ian Levine, Gerald Simpson, Mark Moore, Dennis Bovell, Don Letts, Adrian Sherwood and the late Keith LeBlanc.
Matthew Collin spoke to ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK about the research and writing behind ‘Dream Machines: Electronic Music in Britain from Doctor Who to Acid House’.
What drew you towards a love of electronic sounds?
When I was growing up, you could hear all sorts of records on the radio and in the pop charts that used electronics in different ways – KRAFTWERK’s ‘Autobahn’, ‘Popcorn’ by HOT BUTTER, CHICORY TIP’s ‘Son of My Father’ with its gnarly Moog riff. But as a child, I didn’t really identify any of this stuff as ‘electronic music’ as such. You would actually have some quite strange music in the pop charts back in the 1970s, like Rupie Edwards’ bonkers dub track ‘Ire Feelings (Skanga)’. Then there was Bowie, Roxy, Donna Summer’s disco hits with Giorgio Moroder – amazing records, all futuristic in different ways.
This adventurous music that seemed to gaze into the future always excited me – records made by charismatic nonconformists, flamboyant idealists and crazy dreamers; the kind of people I found fascinating. That’s why I also loved that arty DIY postpunk period when people were making mad noises with tape loops, Wasp synths, echo units and drum machines put through fuzzboxes, as well as the raw, early electro-pop; all those releases on independent labels like Rough Trade, Factory, Mute, Fast Product and Industrial Records. Then as the 1980s progressed you got hip-hop and electronic dance music in all its thrilling varieties, which seemed to take this adventurous spirit forwards.
Photo by Nia Gvatua
There are a lot of electronic and dance music books already, so what makes ‘Dream Machines’ different in concept?
‘Dream Machines’ is a celebration of the early pioneers of electronic music in the UK, tracking the story back to the period after World War II when people who dreamed of a new kind of music first got access to tape recorders to turn their dreams into reality. The book follows the music’s trajectory through the sixties, when weird sounds were pumped into the nation’s living rooms by THE BBC RADIOPHONIC WORKSHOP, the sonic experiments of adventurous pop musicians like THE BEATLES, through the psychedelic era and into the seventies and eighties with the emergence of dub, electro, hip-hop and then house and techno.
What’s different about the book is that as well as examining how new technology affected the music that was being made, it locates the music’s development within the massive social changes that were happening in Britain during those decades – post-war optimism, the rise of sixties bohemia and liberation movements fighting for equal rights and against discrimination, the Windrush generation’s huge influence on British musical culture, the political turbulence of the seventies and eighties. All these social changes influenced the people who made this music and were reflected in the sounds that they made.
How important was THE BBC RADIOPHONIC WORKSHOP in this story?
Massively important. THE BBC RADIOPHONIC WORKSHOP introduced so many people in Britain to electronic music, not only through soundtracks for science-fiction TV series like ‘Doctor Who’, but also via the musique concrète sounds that the Workshop’s composers created for BBC Schools Radio broadcasts. Kids would be listening to an educational programme and hearing these amazing otherworldly noises blasting out. A lot of people reckon this is why the UK became such a leader in electro-pop in the eighties, because all these schoolchildren grew up on THE RADIOPHONIC WORKSHOP’s electronic sounds.
The Workshop also set a kind of template for electronic music-making in Britain, with its do-it-yourself, make-do-and-mend approach, using whatever equipment was at hand to create new sounds, customising and retooling technology to suit the needs of the moment, mutating and manipulating sonics. DIY futurism, in other words. This spirit endured all the way into the electronic dance music era.
What about the period which you maybe had less knowledge of but most enjoyed writing about from the research and interviews you conducted?
I wasn’t a massive fan of seventies hippie bands like GONG and HAWKWIND before I wrote the book, but I have huge admiration for them now. They were truly out there, combining cosmic electronics with psychedelic rock, experimenting with improvisation and tranced-out repetitive beats. It was a creative counterpart to the fantastic music that Krautrock bands like CAN, FAUST and AMON DÜÜL II were making in Germany around the same time.
Synth Britannia put the pop into synth, is this a movement that you look on fondly, is it finally getting the cultural recognition it deserves?
Culturally, this was a very interesting moment, and not just for the music. People like Phil Oakey, Marc Almond and Annie Lennox were playing with ideas of sartorial genderfluidity, different ways of expressing sexuality, transgressing societal norms. FRANKIE GOES TO HOLLYWOOD were jubilantly celebrating gay sex, while Imagination were presenting an “alternative masculinity with feminine attributes”, as the writer Marcus Barnes has put it, challenging preconceptions about how a Black British group should look and act. The greatest hits of the synth-pop eighties are now replayed on a seemingly perpetual loop on nostalgia radio as depoliticised and dehistoricised entertainment, but this was a much more culturally progressive period than it is sometimes depicted.
You discuss dub reggae in the book and John Foxx mentions how witnessing Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry at work influenced the sound of ‘Metamatic’, it’s interesting how all these dots join…
It’s impossible to understate how important dub has been to the development of electronic music, particularly its ideas about the creative use of space and echo. It was also a crucial factor in the musical make-up of genres like jungle, drum and bass, trip-hop, dubstep and most subsequent British-made electronic dance music, as well as making a major impact on rock and pop. “Dub changed the way people listen to music and it changed the way people conceive music and compose music”, as the veteran reggae producer Dennis Bovell told me. The Jamaican influence, brought to Britain by the Windrush generation, is something that has given electronic music in the UK its unique flavour and made it different from music created in mainland Europe or the United States.
By the way, Dennis Bovell tells an amusing story about how ‘Silly Games’, the hit he produced for Janet Kay, was recorded in the same studio around the same time as Gary Numan’s ‘Are Friends Electric?’ and used exactly the same synthesizer as Numan’s song. Bovell was actually a big prog rock fan, he even used to play in a band called STONEHENGE, which is why he said he wanted to use synths in reggae.
The story of how Ian Levine only turned to electronics to make ‘So Many Men, So Little Time’ by Miguel Brown due to budget limitations was a key turning point?
British Hi-NRG producer Ian Levine wanted to make lavish disco records using funky musicians and string sections, but because he couldn’t afford it anymore, he had to use drum machines and synths. It’s that DIY ethos again: adapting and mutating sounds because you have no alternative, and creating something new in the process. This is another thread that runs through ‘Dream Machines’, and through British electronic music in general – using the power of the imagination to overcome limitations.
You gave Stock Aitken & Waterman quite a bit of airtime when most books about electronic music wouldn’t be touching them with a barge pole?
I think there’s an interesting story there, however you rate Stock Aitken & Waterman’s records aesthetically. In the book, I write about the cultural importance of Hi-NRG, which was massive in underground gay clubs across the UK in the mid-eighties. Stock Aitken & Waterman then turned this gay electronic disco sound into straight electronic pop, and sold millions of records doing it.
They also brought textures from early Chicago house records into their music. It shows yet again how sounds from underground gay clubs and cutting-edge Black American dance music are readapted into white British pop, often very quickly, and then become part of the collective musical vocabulary.
Acid house took electronic music away from songs, so as an enthusiastic historian of it, where do you think the emotional resonance comes from it or is it more from memory association i.e. the collective experience and the chemical escapism?
I do think that the Ecstasy boom in the late eighties had an impact on the way British electronic music was made, because clubbers on E wanted more repetitive, trancelike grooves with weirder sonic effects, and as a result, producers were making tracks that became longer, freakier and more rhythmically intense. The original Chicago house music was an electronically-rendered, low-budget version of disco, and as time went on, it became increasingly deconstructed. The increasing popularity of E across the UK meant that there was a growing audience for these powerfully hypnotic records, and this in turn meant that more house and techno tracks were needed to meet this demand, which nurtured a rapidly-growing creative community of UK producers.
To you, was acid house like the spirit of THE RADIOPHONIC WORKSHOP with a dance beat?
Acid house offered a kind of unique weirdness that attracted a lot of people in the UK; people who liked strange sounds with a heavy beat. Many of them had undoubtedly grown up hearing THE RADIOPHONIC WORKSHOP’s soundtracks for TV and radio. In the book, Haçienda club DJ Jon Dasilva memorably describes acid house as ‘house music’s experimental wing’. When acid house exploded, you had musicians coming into the scene who had previously been involved with postpunk, indie and industrial music, and who brought in new ideas.
You also had people getting involved in acid house who had been involved in previous forms of psychedelic music and were excited by the idea of a technologically-enhanced psychedelia. Steve Hillage and Miquette Giraudy, former members of cosmic jazz-rock band GONG who became techno duo SYSTEM 7, are classic examples of this. As Hillage put it when I interviewed him: “We were very attracted to acid house because of the acid in it.”
You interviewed quite a few people for the book, from those who perhaps you not had spoken to much before, what were the biggest revelations for you, stuff that you were not aware of or had only heard on hearsay but now confirmed?
I loved the way that disparate musical ideas, scenes and people connect across history. One example is the historical link between the 1970s hippie festival by the ancient monument at Stonehenge and the 21st century techno temple Berghain. Britain’s first all-electronic band, a now-obscure group called ZORCH, played live at the Stonehenge festival back in 1974, where they met Tony Andrews, an expert in sound system technology. After working as ZORCH’s sound system man, Andrews went on to set up Turbosound, the company that provided the sound systems for the early acid house raves, and then he co-founded Funktion 1, which now provides top-of-the-range sound rigs for techno clubs like Berghain. So there’s this chain of creative links stretching for five decades through British electronic music history.
I also loved the way that sounds and styles are exchanged across countries and continents, adapting and mutating in the process. One example in the book is a UK-based producer called Tony Williams, a radio DJ in London who wanted to make a funky hip-hop groove that sounded a bit like THE SUGARHILL GANG’s ‘Rappers Delight’, which had just been a hit. But he booked reggae musicians to play it, and the sessions were mixed by a UK dub engineer, so the track, ‘Love Money’ by TW FUNK MASTERS, turned out like a kind of Caribbean-inflected disco-dub. Williams’ record then influenced New York producers and DJs like François Kevorkian and Larry Levan, who emulated Williams’ style for records that defined the sound of the Paradise Garage, the iconic NY underground club. So you had all these musical ideas from the US, Jamaica and the UK crossing back and forth across the world to create something fresh.
Did you get everyone you wanted to interview for the book? Were there any notable people who declined that you can talk about?
Paul McCartney would have been a fascinating interview. He’s often seen as the straightest of THE BEATLES, but he played a very important role in bringing ideas from the avant-garde into pop music. For a period in the mid-sixties when the countercultural ‘underground’ was emerging, McCartney became a cultural explorer on the bohemian fringes of Swinging London, going to see avant-garde concerts and exhibitions. He talked a lot in interviews at that time about discovering electronic music and musique concrète, and people took notice of what he was saying because he was a member of the most famous pop group in the world.
Then once THE BEATLES and their producer George Martin started experimenting with tape loops, sound manipulation and electronics, these techniques started to become assimilated into pop’s sonic universe. THE BEATLES’ ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ was a landmark in futurist pop, and it set many other musicians on the path of sonic exploration. At the time, it must have sounded like it had been beamed in from another dimension.
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its sincerest thanks to Matthew Collin
1984 saw FM synthesis, sampling and computer controlled systems taking a more dominant role in not just electronic music making but within mainstream pop as well.
The ubiquity of the Yamaha DX7 with its realistic sounds and the dominance digital drum machines meant that inventive electronic sound design would take a backseat. This meant that the otherworldly fascination that had come with Synth Britannia was now something of a distant memory. But despite the popularity of the Emulator at this time for its factory disk derived symphonic strings, brass and choirs, the Roland Jupiter 8 remained the main analogue synth for the likes of THE BLUE NILE and TALK TALK as well as Howard Jones.
While Trevor Horn and his team were well equipped with all the state of the art equipment money could buy for the ZTT releases of THE ART OF NOISE and FRANKIE GOES HOLLYWOOD, OMD and HEAVEN 17 were among those who purchased the Fairlight Series II. SOFT CELL and Gary Numan chose the PPG system while THE HUMAN LEAGUE opted for the Synclavier II.
However, despite all the high tech, the most disappointing record of the year was undoubtedly ‘Hysteria’, THE HUMAN LEAGUE’s lukewarm follow-up to ‘Dare’ which departed from the supreme synthpop formula of its predecessor. ‘Dare’ producer Martin Rushent had left the troubled sessions following disagreements with the band but as the recording continued to be prolonged, his replacement Chris Thomas soon followed him through the door. Hugh Padgham who had worked with Phil Collins on his key hit recordings was drafted in to finish the record.
Although the excellent ‘Louise’ saw the estranged couple from ‘Don’t You Want Me?’ cross paths again a few years on, the laudable attempt at political observation and guitar-driven dynamics ‘The Lebanon’ confused fans. Meanwhile the remainder of the album was underwhelming, with the reworked version of ‘I Love You Too Much’ sounding a poor shadow of the dynamic Martin Rushent original which had premiered on the Canadian ‘Fascination! EP in 1983.
Those pop acts who had topped the UK charts in 1983 like CULTURE CLUB and SPANDAU BALLET also suffered from lacklustre follow-ups and were superseded by the rise of WHAM! Despite the absence of a new studio album, DURAN DURAN managed to score a No1 with ‘The Reflex’ and a No2 with ‘The Wild Boys’, both in a creative union with Nile Rodgers while making an impact in 1984 was Nik Kershaw.
The split of YAZOO the previous year led to Alison Moyet issuing her first solo album ‘Alf’ but the new Vince Clarke project THE ASSEMBLY lasted just one single ‘Never Never’ featuring the vocals of Feargal Sharkey. Comparatively quiet in 1984, NEW ORDER released their most commercial single yet in ‘Thieves Like Us’.
With bands like A FLOCK OF SEAGULLS, THE PSYCHEDELIC FURS and U2 having achieved success in North America with a more rock derived template, the lure of the Yankee Dollar steered SIMPLE MINDS towards that less artful bombastic direction with the ultimately flawed ‘Sparkle In The Rain’. The purer synthesizer sound was now less desirable in terms of Trans-Atlantic marketability and pressure was put on acts to use more guitar and live drums, something that would become even more prominent in 1985.
So until then, here are 20 albums selected by ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK seen as contributing to the electronic legacy of 1984. Listed in alphabetical order, there is a restriction of one album per artist moniker
ALPHAVILLE Forever Young
Fronted by Marian Gold, German trio ALPHAVILLE broke through in the UK with a Zeus B Held remix of ‘Big In Japan’ and while that particular version is not included on the ‘Forever Young’ album, the original mix held its own alongside songs like ‘Sound Like A Melody’ and ‘Fallen Angel’. Meanwhile, the poignant title song has since become an evergreen anthem borrowed by the likes of THE KILLERS and JAY-Z!
From the off, THE ART OF NOISE were rattling cages. ‘Beat Box’ was the track which scared KRAFTWERK enough for them to delay the release of their ‘Technopop’ album and rework it as the underwhelming ‘Electric Cafe’. The crazy staccato sample cacophony of ‘Close (To The Edit)’ which was later borrowed by THE PRODIGY for ‘Firestarter’ still sounds as fresh and mad as ever while ‘Moments In Love’ heralded a new age in mood music.
On the back of hit singles in ‘Blind Vision’, ‘That’s Love That It Is’ and ‘Don’t Tell Me’, the brilliantly titled second BLANCMANGE album ‘Mange Tout’ became their biggest seller. Another surprise came with a melodramatic cover of ABBA’s ‘The Day Before You Came’; considered an odd but daring decision at the time, it was something of a cultural prophecy with ABBA now fully reabsorbed into mainstream popular culture.
Glum Scottish trio THE BLUE NILE had an innovative deal with Linn, the Glasgow-based high quality Hi-Fi manufacturer where their crisply produced debut ‘A Walk Across The Rooftops’ as used by dealers to demonstrate the sonic range of their products. ‘Tinseltown In The Rain’ and ‘Stay’ got BBC Radio1 airplay and while they were not hits, the artful album became a favourite among the cognoscenti and other musicians.
When BRONSKI BEAT first appeared, they were nothing short of startling, thanks to their look, melodic synth sound and Jimmy Somerville’s lonely earth shattering falsetto. ‘The Age Of Consent’ used their position as openly gay performers to make important statements such as ‘Smalltown Boy’, ‘Why’ and ‘Need A Man Blues’ as well as the anti-consumerist ‘Junk’ and the self-explanatory protest song ‘No More War’.
Featuring the blissful ‘Sensoria’, the second Some Bizzare long playing adventure of CABARET VOLTAIRE saw Stephen Mallinder and Richard H Kirk at possibly their most accessible yet while still remaining alternative. With a Fairlight CMI now taking over from the previous tape experiments alongside the punchy rhythmic backdrop, tracks like ‘Do Right’ and ‘Slammer’ exemplified their alternative club direction.
With Pete Burns now looking more and more like Gina X, it was no big surprise that her producer Zeus B Held was helming DEAD OR ALIVE’s electronic disco direction. An energetic cover of KC & THE SUNSHINE BAND’s ‘That’s The Way’ was the hit breakthrough but there was also mighty sequencer dance tunes such as ‘Misty Circles’ and ‘What I Want’, as well as the Morrissey fronting ABBA serenity of ‘Far Too Hard’.
Despite more adult songs with S&M metaphors about capitalism and doubts about religion, ‘Some Great Reward’ was the last innocentDEPECHE MODE album. With Gareth Jones now taking on a co-production role with Daniel Miller, the sampling experimentation was honed into the powerful metallic pop of ‘Something To Do’, ‘Master & Servant’, ‘If You Want’ and ‘Blasphemous Rumours’ while there was also the sensitive piano ballad ‘Somebody’.
FRANKIE GOES TO HOLLYWOOD Welcome To The Pleasure Dome
The Trevor Horn produced ‘Welcome To The Pleasure Dome’ was a double album that should have been edited down to a single record but that would have missed the point. Featuring three supreme UK No1 singles in ‘Relax’, ‘Two Tribes’ and ‘The Power Of Love’, FRANKIE GOES TO HOLLYWOOD had their place cemented in musical history, regardless of the radio bannings and controversial marketing stunts.
With songs like ‘Playtime’ and ‘Love In Mind’, Robert Görl took a cool escapist journey into synthpop on ‘Night Full Of Tension’ dominated by digital drum machines and sequencers. In a volte face from the DAF drummer, he exuded a relaxed English vocal style in the manner of Bryan Ferry and David Bowie. There were also additional vocal contributions from Annie Lennox on ‘Charlie Cat’ and the duet highlight ‘Darling Don’t Leave Me’.
The success of ‘The Luxury Gap’ brought money into HEAVEN 17 and this was reflected in the orchestrally assisted Fairlight jamboree of ‘How Men Are’. “I think it’s an underrated album and that was when we were probably in our most daring and creative phase” said Martyn Ware and that manifested itself on the sub-ten minute closer ‘And That’s No Lie’ and the outstanding Doomsday Clock referencing opener ‘Five Minutes To Midnight’.
Having been an early adopter of the Fairlight CMI on ‘Magnetic Fields’, Jean-Michel Jarre utilised it further to create an instrumental palette sampled from 25 spoken languages on ‘Zoolook’. It also saw the use of notable musicians including Marcus Miller, Yogi Horton, Adrian Belew and Laurie Anderson who lent her voice to the delightfully oddball ‘Diva’. The magnificent highlight was the 11 minute ‘Ethnicolour’.
‘Human’s Lib’ was the beginning of Howard Jones’ imperial phase, with four hit singles ‘New Song’, ‘What Is Love?’, ‘Hide And Seek’ and ‘Pearl In The Shell’ included on this immediate debut. But there was quality in the other songs with ‘Equality’ sounding like an arrangement blue print for A-HA’s ‘Take On Me’ and the title song about Ruth, David and Dennis touching on the complexities of love triangles!
‘Human’s Lib’ is still available via Cherry Red Records
After the jazzier overtones of ‘Warriors’, ‘Berserker’ was conceived as “a science alternative album” by Gary Numan and therefore much more of an electronic proposition. Dominated by the PPG Wave system which had been the heartbeat of FRANKIE GOES TO HOLLYWOOD, ‘My Dying Machine’ pumped like ‘Relax’ while the rhythmic title song and the exotic ‘Cold Warning’ provided other highlights.
With its embracement of calypso, reggae, indie and mainstream pop, ‘Junk Culture’ was perhaps even more experimental than ‘Dazzle Ships’ and took OMD outside of the Germanic sound laboratory they had emerged from. Known for two slightly inane hits, ‘Locomotion’ put them back into the UK Top5 while ‘Talking Loud & Clear’ only just missed out on the Top10. However, the best single from the album ‘Tesla Girls’ stalled at No21!
Co-produced by Bernard Sumner of NEW ORDER, ‘From The Hip’ followed founder member Larry Cassidy’s statement that “you can’t be a punk all your life”. Recruiting vocalist Jenny Ross and keyboardist Angela Cassidy, ‘Looking From A Hilltop’ with its clattering drum machine, pulsing hypnotism and ominous synth lines was the album’s standout while ‘Program For Light’ explored further electronic territory.
If ‘The Art Of Falling Apart’ was the difficult second SOFT CELL album, ‘This Last Night In Sodom’ was an even more challenging proposition with some tracks even mixed in mono! The thundering percussive cover of ‘Down In The Subway’ was a metaphor for Marc Almond’s mental state while ‘L’ Esqualita’ provided some fabulous gothic menace alongside the frenetic rush of ‘Soul Inside’, all aided by Dave Ball and his PPG Wave 2.2.
Now a trio, the second TALK TALK album saw them work with producer Tim Friese-Greene who would also have a songwriting role alongside Mark Hollis. Still reliant on synthesizers for its aural template, the initial five song sequence from ‘Dum Dum Girl’ to ‘Tomorrow Started’ was superb, taking in the title song, the magnificent ‘Such A Shame’ and the emotive ballad ‘Renée’. It sold well in Europe but was largely ignored in the UK.
Following their breakthrough record ‘Quick Step & Side Kick’, ‘Into The Gap’ was the most commercially successful THOMPSON TWINS studio album, putting the quirky trio into the US Top10. With Tom Bailey now taking on a co-producer role alongside Alex Sadkin, it featured the megahits ‘Hold Me Now’ and ‘Doctor Doctor’ while the neo-title song ‘The Gap’ offered an Eastern flavoured take on ‘Trans-Europe Express’.
With self-produced sessions in the Musicfest home studio of Midge Ure, there were more obviously programmed rhythm tracks than previously while tracks ranged from the earnest rock of ‘One Small Day’ to the sequencer-driven ‘White China’. The apocalyptic Michael Rother influenced ‘Dancing With Tears In My Tears’ that gave ULTRAVOX with their biggest hit since ‘Vienna’ although the Celtic overtures of ‘Man Of Two Worlds’ was the album’s best song.
While 1979 saw a post-punk revolution with new wave and ska emerge as energetic expressions of youth with the likes of JOY DIVISION, XTC, THE SPECIALS and MADNESS, maturer acts with power pop sensibilities such as BLONDIE and THE POLICE dominated the UK charts.
But the synthesizer had become a new tool of creativity for those who weren’t interested in learning chords on a guitar and preferred to use one finger, thanks to its new found affordability with refined technology from Japan. While electronics had been present in disco, progressive rock and esoteric avant garde forms, following seminal records in 1978 such as ‘Warm Leatherette’ b/w ‘TVOD’ by THE NORMAL and ‘Being Boiled’ by THE HUMAN LEAGUE, a new DIY artpop form was developing that would eventually take on KRAFTWERK at their own game.
Among those fledgling electronic acts who released their debut singles in 1979 on independent labels were OMD with ‘Electricity’ on Factory Records and FAD GADGET with ‘Back To Nature’ on Mute Records. Meanwhile on another independent Rough Trade, CABARET VOLTAIRE achieved a wider breakthrough with ‘Nag Nag Nag’, the standalone single accompanying their first album ‘Mix-Up’.
Having experimented with synths on ‘Low’ released in 1977, David Bowie had gone to see THE HUMAN LEAGUE at The Nashville in late 1978 and hailed them as “the future of rock ‘n’ roll”. Alas it was TUBEWAY ARMY fronted by Gary Numan who beat THE HUMAN LEAGUE to the top of the UK singles charts in Summer 1979 with Are Friends Electric?’. However, just a few weeks earlier, SPARKS had taken the Giorgio Moroder produced ‘No1 Song In Heaven’ into the UK Top20. But however history is perceived, a revolution had begun that would lead to the dawn of “synthpop” in 1980.
Here are 20 albums which ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK sees as contributing to the electronic legacy of 1979. They are listed in alphabetical order with a restriction of one album per artist moniker, meaning Gary Numan and Edgar Froese appear twice…
ASHRA Correlations
As ASHRA, Manuel Göttsching released what many consider to be his first ambient masterpiece ‘New Age Of Earth’. On 1978’s ‘Blackouts’, he expanded the line-up to include drumming synthesist Harald Grosskopf and guitarist Lutz Ulbrich which continued on ‘Correlations’. Despite being more rock-oriented, it featured sequenced electronics with ‘Club Cannibal’ almost entering Jean-Michel Jarre territory.
Although he had released ‘Romance ‘76’ while still a member of TANGERINE DREAM, Peter Baumann’s first solo album after departing the band was something of an interim record before venturing into electronic pop with ‘Repeat Repeat’. Mostly shorter instrumental compositions using mysterious melodies and occasional vocoder textures, ‘Trans Harmonic Nights’ remains something of an underrated electronic gem.
With TANGERINE DREAM taking a misstep with ‘Cyclone’ and perhaps prompted by the success of Jean-Michel Jarre’s electronic symphonies, on his fifth solo album ‘Stuntman’, Edgar Froese was at his most accessible with strong synth melodies, particularly on the title track. Elsewhere, new ages resonances were starting to develop while on ‘Drunk Mozart In The Desert’, there was atmospherics coupled with a rhythmic bounce.
Produced and co-written by Zeus B Held, the debut album by androgynous art history student Gina Kikoine featured an array of ARP and Moog synths to signal the birth of a new European Underground. Cult club favourite ‘No GDM’ was written in honour of the “great dark man” Quentin Crisp while other highlights included the detached vocoder assisted robotic soul of the title song and the feisty gender statement ‘Be A Boy’.
With Giorgio Moroder acquiring Roland’s new System 700 and an MC8 Micro-composer to control it, ‘E=MC2’ was touted as the first “electronic live-to-digital” album. This allowed for an uptempo funkiness previously unheard on sequencer based music to come into play. With the electronically treated vocals and euphoric energy of the marvellous ‘What A Night’, the sound of DAFT PUNK was inadvertently being invented!
As a member of GONG and solo artist, Steve Hillage had a love of German experimental music and ventured into ambient with long standing partner Miquette Giraudy. Recorded for the Rainbow Dome at the ‘Festival For Mind-Body-Spirit’ at London’s Olympia, these two lengthy Moog and ARP assisted tracks each had a beautifully spacey vibe to induce total relaxation with a colourful sound spectrum.
With a manifesto of “synthesizers and vocals only”, the debut album by THE HUMAN LEAGUE included ‘Empire State Human’, ‘Circus Of Death’, ‘Almost Medieval’, ‘Blind Youth’ and a stark cover of ‘You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling’. Produced by Colin Thurston, while ‘Reproduction’ was not a commercial success, Philip Oakey, Ian Craig Marsh and Martyn Ware gained valuable experience that would progress their careers.
Although considered a 1980 album, the third JAPAN long player was actually released late 1979 in Japan, Canada, Holland and Germany. Featuring the sequencer-driven title song as well as the rockier ‘Halloween’ and a cover of THE VELVET UNDERGROUND’s ‘All Tomorrow’s Parties’, despite Roxy rip-off accusations, it was a major artistic step forward as a quality timeless work embracing synths, muzak and orchestrations.
Devoid of guitar but using a flesh-and-blood rhythm section, Gary Numan realised his dream of producing a new form, machine rock. Synths were fed through guitar effects pedals to add a more sinister metallic tone and while there was sombre isolation communicated on all the songs, there was a catchy melodic sensibility to songs such as ‘Cars’, ‘Metal’, ‘Films’, ‘Engineers’ and ‘M.E.’ which turned Numan into the first synthesizer pop star.
Originally released on THROBBING GRISTLE’s Industrial Records, ‘The Bridge’ album saw Scottish duo Thomas Leer and Robert Rental trading vocal and instrumental duties using early affordable synths such as the EDP Wasp. Comprising of a side of five songs and a side with four ambient instrumentals, ‘Day Breaks, Night Heals’ and ‘Monochrome Days’ both showcased an avant pop sensibility. Robert Rental sadly passed away in 2000.
Best known as a member of CLUSTER with the late Dieter Moebius and working with Brian Eno on two albums, ‘Selbstportrait’ was Hans-Joachim Roedelius’ third solo long player. This was a “self-portrait” reflecting the gentle introspective ambience of the record. Something of a sister record to the 1977’s marvellous ‘Sowiesoso’, it was more accessible than CLUSTER’s own structurally minimal ‘Grosses Wasser’ also issued in 1979.
After the ambitious double opus ‘X’ which also incorporated strings in a record comprising of “Six Musical Biographies” in honour of figures including philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche and ‘Dune’ author Frank Herbert, Klaus Schulze conceived an actual album called ‘Dune’. Something of a diversion, ‘Shadows of Ignorance’ featured the eccentric poetry of Arthur Brown while the experimental ambient title track made use of cello.
Stronger than their debut LP ‘Life In A Day’, SIMPLE MINDS started experimenting with more electronics and a very European austere on its swift follow-up ‘Real To Real Cacophony’ with the title song presenting their take on KRAFTWERK’s ‘Radio-Activity’. Underground and pulsating through on ‘Changeling’, that breakthrough single and ‘Premonition’ really were a sign of things to come in their dark avant disco templates.
Following the inspirational success of ‘I Feel Love’, SPARKS were put in contact with its producer Giorgio Moroder who had aspirations to work with a band. The resultant album saw Russell Mael’s flamboyant falsetto fitting well with the pulsing electronic disco template. ‘The No1 Song In Heaven’ hit the UK Top 20 a few months before ‘Are Friends Electric?’ while the follow-up ‘Beat The Clock’ got into the Top 10.
‘No1 In Heaven’ is still available via Lil Beethoven Records
Still feeling the void left by the departure of Pete Baumann, following the vocal experiment of ‘Cyclone’, Edgar Froese and Christopher Franke opted to retain drummer in Klaus Krüger. While there was also increased guitar and piano usage, the title song and ‘Thru Metamorphic Rocks’ utilised pulsing sequencer passages to signal the future Hollywood direction that TANGERINE DREAM would head in.
The ethos of Belgian trio TELEX was “making something really European, different from rock, without guitar”. ‘Looking For Saint Tropez’ contained ‘Moscow Diskow’ which took the Trans-Siberian Express to Moscow by adding a funkier groove. Also included were funereal robotic covers of ‘Rock Around The Clock’ which was a UK Top40 hit and Plastic Bertrand’s ‘Ça Plane Pour Moi’ as well as their deadpan debut single ‘Twist A Saint Tropez’.
The title and the group photo on Beachy Head were tongue-in-cheek statements but THROBBING GRISTLE were still deathly uncompromising as shown by ‘Persuasion’. However, there were glints of light with the glorious cascading instrumental ‘Walkabout’ and mutant disco lento of ‘Hot On The Heels Of Love’ as Cosey Fanni Tutti’s whispered vocals competed with synthetic whip-crack and drill noises!
Whereas the TUBEWAY ARMY debut featured punk tunes with added synth, ‘Replicas’ would see the Philip K Dick inspired dystopian vision of Gary Numan paired with appropriate electronic sounds as the main melodic component on the now classic UK No1 ‘Are Friends Electric?’. But the earlier singles ‘Down In The Park’ and the lengthy instrumental ‘I Nearly Married A Human’ pointed to a future guitar-free follow-up.
Although VANGELIS had never been to China at the time the album was recorded, he had developed a passionate fascination for its people, culture and vast landscape, noting a connection between ethnic Greek and Chinese music. Using traditional elements alongside his synthesizers, the centrepieces were the majestic ‘Chung Kuo’ and the meditative pentatonic piece ‘The Tao Of Love’. ‘China’ remains an underrated record in his canon.
The second and best YELLOW MAGIC ORCHESTRA album featured an embarrassment of riches. It included the glorious Technopop of ‘Rydeen’, the mighty citypop of ‘Technopolis’, the moodier ‘Castalia’ and the Cossack romp of ‘Absolute Ego Dance’. But it was the iconic ‘Behind The Mask’ originally composed for Seiko which was later covered by Greg Phillinganes, Eric Clapton and Michael Jackson.
We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it.Ok
on Dindisc Records, the 
in 1982 and featured the single ‘Dance After Curfew’ produced by Daniel Lanois; it fittingly became a radio hit in Poland as the country’s Communist government declared martial law.
Follow Us!